This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

Last week, we covered how the search for Malaysia Flight MH370 is set to end in the near future, as the last of the 46,300 square-mile search area is due to be mapped shortly. With less than 10% of the search area left still to examine, the chances of finding the plane within its boundaries is very small. But a crucial new piece of information, not previously known, is that the plane’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, appears to have conducted a simulated suicide flight scenario that ended with an aircraft disappearing in the Indian Ocean.

The evidence for the simulation run was uncovered in March 2014, when Malaysian officials gave the FBI the hard drives Shah used as part of an “elaborate” flight simulator in his home. The FBI was able to recover six deleted data points that had been stored in Microsoft Flight Simulator X. The FBI document (as reported by New Yorkmagazine) reads:

Based on the Forensics Analysis conducted on the 5 HDDs obtained from the Flight Simulator from MH370 Pilot’s house, we found a flight path, that lead to the Southern Indian Ocean, among the numerous other flight paths charted on the Flight Simulator, that could be of interest, as contained in Table 2.

These deleted points show a flight plan that departed Kuala Lumpur, headed northwest over the Malacca Strait, then banked and headed out over the Indian Ocean. Once the fuel tanks were exhausted, the aircraft would’ve plunged into the sea. While rumors that the captain may have been involved have always run around the Internet, there are several factors to note here.

First, while Shah’s flight simulator contained records that he’d plotted such a course, the path MH370 is believed to have followed based on analysis of its satellite pings does not match the route Shah planned in simulation. In the image below, Shah’s simulated flight is in red, while the believed path of the aircraft is in yellow.

Second, Shah’s home and work life were both positive to the best knowledge of anyone around him. He had suffered no recent losses, had no history of depression, and no expressed interest in religious or political extremism. The vast majority of terrorists leave some record of their activities, even if such records only emerge posthumously. No evidence linking Shah to any religious or political extremists has ever been found. And a single deleted flight path, absent any kind of documentation, doesn’t prove anything. (I must note that I’d be mortified if I ever ran for city government and someone submitted my activities on SimCity as evidence against me. I have a known weakness for nuclear power plants, giant monsters, and earthquakes.)

Conscious or unconscious?

As Popular Mechanics discusses, one reason the search teams chose to focus where they did is because Shah’s southern suicide route does share general characteristics with the route MH370 is believed to have taken. It also complicates the situation. Virtually all of our assumptions about the aircraft’s final moments rest on the idea that it hit the water very near to the time when it lost power.

If it didn’t — if Shah was conscious and able to glide the craft — it would mean the aircraft could be almost anywhere. The problem is, our analysis of where the aircraft was depended heavily on assumptions about its altitude, trajectory, and autopilot status. A conscious pilot also raises a host of other questions. If Shah hijacked the plane, what happened to its crew? Who would have had potential access to an emergency radio and other means of signaling the ground, as well as full oxygen masks and oxygen bottles? While I don’t present this Quora post as providing guaranteed data, the general consensus seems to be that while a pilot could potentially take action to vent cabin pressure and compromise the aircraft, doing so while simultaneously incapacitating the crew and guaranteeing he himself remained conscious would have been difficult, if not impossible. If Shah took actions that resulted in his own incapacitation or death, that means the plane wouldn’t have had a pilot to land it six hours later, which means the search area should’ve still been accurate.

Knowing that Shah plotted a suicide course on a flight simulator is interesting evidence that suggests he might have taken his own life. But the complete lack of corroborating evidence means it could also be little more than coincidence. Without the plane — and possibly even with it — we’ll never know.

Tagged In

Whats strange is the Aussie air traffics or their military doesn’t declare if they detect the plane on their radar to conclude that was the exact route taken by the plane.

The investigation should be extend to Interpol by collecting radar information from various countries along the way suspected route. What is common in those radar data is unidentified plane(s) and the one that suddenly missing from the air is the one closest target of the crash site on that day.

ja_1410

There are no countries over there. Australia is the closest and still thousands miles away. it is questionable if Australian military radar was able to detect and track plane so far away.

Joel Hruska

Good point. I’m not sure how far from mainland Australia the primary search grid is, but it’s at least hundreds of miles. At the equator, the distance between each line of longitude is 69 miles. They’re well south of the equator, so I’m not sure what the exact difference is, but let’s assume 50 miles. That would put them over a thousand miles off the coast of Australia. That’s far enough for the curve of the Earth to function as an effective block to radar (you’d need either an enormous antenna or a ship at sea to track that far away).

I stand corrected! The range is more than enough to track it, though apparently the radar wasn’t pointed in that direction.

z4i

South Indian Sea location is a factious or speculative crash site despite it’s a possible satellite radio ping tracking. I still believe it crash over South Chinese Sea or between Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam jungles toward China.

While witnesses saw a plane on fire probably not the same plane if it is the same plane, it can’t fly too far without exploded mid-air after that strange maneuver to the south pole.

Rafy286

Then if that’s the case how would we explain the Boeing 777 debris found in reunion island? The only Boeing 777 unaccounted for is MH370.

mrkelvin

Never happened, the entire flight is fake. So many lies, I don’t know where to start. But for one, the green boxes don’t work in salt water below 500 feet….radio, get a clue.

Joel Hruska

See, it’s people like you that amaze me. The entire flight is fake. Right.

The wreckage that’s washed up and confirmed by Boeing to be part of MH 370? Those investigators are lying. The Malaysians? Lying. The families? Lying. The pilot and crew? Didn’t exist.

How on Earth do you come to the conclusion that it’s easier to manufacture the lives of 239 people and the disappearance of a $250 million plane than it is to accept the fact that a flight vanished? Do you think the Australians, Chinese, and Malaysians paid out hundreds of millions to fund searches for 2+ years across a huge chunk of the ocean to search for a plane nobody thinks exists? (Alright, in point of fact, it was a tiny chunk of ocean, but it was an enormous, unparalleled search effort).

I don’t get conspiracy theorists. It’s like you look at a duck, in all its duckness, and then declare that it MUST actually be… a Tyrannosaurus Rex *masquerading* as a duck.

Ekard

Why even try with trolls like this? If he truly believes what he has posted, in the face of all the reports already out there, there is absolutely nothing you can post on the matter that will change his mind. Since I hold hope for humanity, I have to believe he is posting an inflammatory post to elicit a response.

Tom

You can’t reason people out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into, Joel!

Joel Hruska

Tom, I think you win the thread.

Yoduh99

that’s where you’re going to start? by calling the black box green, and making a claim that can be debunked with a simple google search? my jimmies aren’t even rustled slightly. 0/10 attempt

mrkelvin

So you work on aircraft do ya? You have the keel number of this aircraft?

sddavidg

I have worked through this since the beginning and my proposed flight path is almost identical to this new information. My theory goes that he did want to incapacitate the crew and passengers and botched the job and was overcome as well. His path of choice was designed to take the aircraft pretty much directly over the Cocos (Keeling) islands which do have a land-able airfield. Please note that his political leader of choice had been recently defamed and the population of Cocos is 80% Sunni Muslim. That said, I don’t think suicide was the plan.

Joel Hruska

What would have been the point of flying there? I agree that the Cocos (Keeling) islands have an airport that could land a 777, but what would he have done once arriving? The Cocos are under Australian jurisdiction. Do you think the pilot intended to take the flight crew + passengers hostage?

It looks to be like the Cocos might have been a safe place to land the jet if he’d chickened out of committing suicide and decided to abort — but why hijack a plane and fly it to the middle of nowhere?

sddavidg

His Daughter was living in Aus at the time. His political hero was accused of some pretty bad things.These things were in the news at the time.

I think it would have been simply to make a “statement” and to turn himself in to the authorities after landing safely in a place he felt he might trust to get the truth out about his candidate and the setup he believed was happening.

I believe he really did not intend harm anyone as is suggested by his practicing the flight ahead of time. I truly think he underestimated something and was overcome. If I am correct, the waypoints were already entered in the computer and the plane simply overflew his destination until it ran out of fuel.

Otherwise, why not get on the radio, announce his discontent to the world and fly straight into the ocean? That would be much more likely scenario for someone with a suicidal intent.

Joel Hruska

Hrm. Well, it would explain some things about a difficult-to-explain situation.

I’ve been puzzled by this one since Day 1. Suicide could make sense, but you would think there’d be some evidence of depression, sucidial ideation, *something.* Most people don’t just kill themselves — even if they appear to have acted out of the blue, investigation usually turns up bad debts, cheating on a spouse, terminal disease — *something.*

Bishadi

Why commit suicide and not put it to writing? The why that I came up with, is they may want the plane itself, for a future use.

Please note that when I say I worked through this, I mean I have taken in a whole host of conditions/inputs and worked them against actual buoy drift data and the “seven pings” to round out my hypothesis.

Bishadi

To even claim it was suicide is practically a conspiracy or just the ignorance that the media creates.

Joel Hruska

Except that this is evidence that was suppressed two years ago and has just now come to life. So reporting on evidence that was formerly not part of the record isn’t “conspiracy” or “ignorance.” It’s adding to our understanding of the situation.

How you *parse* this information is up to you, but calling it “ignorance the media creates” when you’re reading about additional information meant to *dispel* ignorance is pretty rich.

Bishadi

Are you suggesting that there has been a conspiracy to suppress information for 2 yrs? I bet that within 48 hrs, everything that the pilot touched was being recorded and it did not take 2 years to find out. The 2 yrs is because the plane is still missing and that MISSING airliner is dangerous as a utensil, if it is truly still flyable.
.
I am one of the people that is still considering that suicide was not the reason. I noted that within hours when I realized what part of the world it was in and watched what was suggested as the flight path. It was an ‘oh sheeeet’ moment because I am American and I am well aware of what a plane can do as a weapon itself.
.
So then, with a nuke on board it is practically an untouchable weapon of mass destruction. Instead of people giving up that the plane was just a suicide mission and turn away from further pursuit, I would rather the global governments, go north of the area, upon the land masses and search for that plane or continue to look over the satellite imaging and look to see if a plane is flying under or shadowing another north bound (india/Pakistan).
.
I figure that missing plane is the single scariest thing still outstanding on this earth and from what I can put together I figure based on the global divide, politics and the long standing oppression, that Jerusalem is the target and that would mean Samson option.
.
If you know anything about me, I don’t play on matters of life and death. I am actually nervous about that single plane.

Joel Hruska

“Are you suggesting that there has been a conspiracy to suppress information for 2 yrs?”

My understanding is that the Malaysians didn’t release this information because they resist the idea that the pilot deliberately wrecked the plane. The linked report in this article suggests that the FBI thinks it was pilot suicide but deferred to the Malaysians on the release of the info. The Malaysian government is still denying the authenticity of the leaked report.

I don’t call that a conspiracy. I call that a government decision not to emphasize some information that apparently some other governments disagreed with.

Wreckage identified by Boeing as coming from MH 370 has already washed up in multiple places, and all of the available data still points towards a southern, not a northern arc along the pings. Absent a method of faking that data, I don’t see any reason to think the plane ended up anywhere *but* the Indian Ocean.

Obviously without the plane itself, there’s no way to prove that.

Bishadi

The wreckage was not confirmed is from mh 370 and why these NEW publications are even surfacing. The last pings were in the north and the southern turn was speculative. Look up the official path.

“”The dimensions, materials and construction of both parts conform to the specifications of a Boeing 777 aircraft; the paint and stencilling on both parts match those used by Malaysia Airlines; and as such, both parts are consistent with panels from a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft, and are almost certainly from MH370.”

The repair history of every single aircraft is tracked. There are no other Boeing 777’s that these parts *could* have come from.

“”””Jan 26, 2016 – Malaysia’s government has confirmed that a piece of metal discovered on … Malaysia government confirmed the piece of debris was not from MH370 ……””””
.

Joel Hruska

Right. That’s not the same debris.

A great many bits of garbage and flotsam have been proposed to be part of MH 370. Those bits were from *Thailand* which is pretty much in the opposite direction from any debris expected to be part of the plane.

To review:

Flaperon on Reunion Island has been confirmed as part of MH 370. Other debris from other areas have been confirmed as well.

See what I mean, nothing official. Media is not confirming. Just like the map of the flight path ends north, but you thought it was southern like the media claimed.
.
My point, no plane, the rest is speculation and I am not arguing about who or why any kind of conspiracy exists, unless you want to take into consideration, that a whole bunch of governing powers are looking awful stupid to be incapable to find an airliner. In my view, if the guy committed suicide, he would have claimed why somewhere. No matter how it is observed the flight path proved foul play.

Joel Hruska

All known evidence suggests a southerly flight path. I will not consider otherwise given that confirmed debris has already been found. Thank you for sharing your perspective.

“I must note that I’d be mortified if I ever ran for city government and someone submitted my activities on SimCity as evidence against me. I have a known weakness for nuclear power plants, giant monsters, and earthquakes.”

Understanding that this is a joke, the truth remains that we live in a time where the natural but morbid curiosity that exists within us all can be called upon as evidence against us. He’ll, I’ve sat on military workstations and toyed with nukemap before, never thinking of what the political landscape may be 20+ years from now. Sure, I’d never plot to nuke a city, but looking back at the events that happeded during the “Red Scare,” it’s terrifying how paranoid some politicians can get.

Nestor Asuncion

It takes a CHESS MASTER to figure this out.
In the game of CHESS you always have to lure your opponent to know what your next move and at the same time you have planned your strategic plan 10 to 20 moves ahead. One of the moves to confuse opponent is to sacrifice some the of greater value than what you gaining. What does this got to do with the “missing plane”?. THINK,THINK THINK.
They were only 2 possible route the plane were going. The flight simulation route is just another move to confuse you in the game of chess. If you are a master player you would leave evidence behind to confuse opponent more. The 2 routes was either OCEAN OR LAND. When all the possibilities were pointing more to land. GUESS WHAT!! Debris shows up in the ovean to confuse the he’ll out of you. The master CHESS PLAYER would do this to avoid it’s QUEEN getting closer for capture wich is positioned somewhere on land. Now that the ocean search is closed, how about searching on land where the other possibility were. Here is the biggest confusion move that a Master CHESS PLAYER would do. INVADE CRIMEA while all of the world’s attentions are on Missing Plane. This happened around the same time. VERY CLEVER MOVE!!!. The mastermind of this move us currently always acting as a MASTER CHESS PLAYER with all the other things he is making to confuse you for his next strategic MOVE.

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

ExtremeTech Newsletter

Subscribe Today to get the latest ExtremeTech news delivered right to your inbox.